Opinion: Join the dots to find a two-headed beast

I have found a new use for Third Sector magazine. No, in my decline
into old codgerdom I have not bought a budgie that needs an absorbent
cage lining. Instead, my reading pleasure is enhanced by each week's
informal join-the-dots competition.

Let's link various pieces in a single issue, 24 May, such as the news
that aid agencies hope to collaborate as a disaster coalition. It
emerges that the Red Cross, ActionAid, Save the Children, Help the Aged,
Care and Oxfam are not solo superstars but have complementary strengths
and weaknesses, their duplication highlighted by the tsunami.

From dot one, head for ActionAid's telling article about how strong
branding and competition can appear tasteless or even counterproductive
when it comes to working with local partners in the developing
world.

The next dot takes us to a piece on partnership in the UK, in which the
NCVO's Collaborative Working Unit reminds us: "Effective working between
voluntary groups will nearly always result in better outcomes for
beneficiaries."

Thus far the picture is clear: co-operation, collaboration, coalitions
and partnerships are great ideas that will deliver far more for
beneficiaries. Yes, less is more.

But at the final dot, WorldWide Volunteering's Peter Sharp takes a
sharply contrary view, urging diversity as he objects to my proposal for
the Charity Commission to require mergers in a bid to cut the sector's
duplication, confusion and waste.

He compares the excess of charities to having a choice of restaurants.
If only it were that easy, with charities enjoying a single key
transaction, offering customer satisfaction in exchange for money and
the bottom line's black or red deciding if they thrive or die.

A better analogy would be soup kitchens. As those helping London's
homeless discovered in recent years, 100 or more groups offering soup
and sandwiches was too much choice, especially when many lacked the
services - advice, healthcare - that were the real reason soup kitchens
existed.

Given that their main customers - funders and beneficiaries - have
entirely different expectations, motives and demands, charities have the
near-impossible task of keeping both groups happy at once.

Fewer charities, less choice and more co-operation might allow
beneficiaries to be the undisputed priority. As it is, joining the dots
reveals a two-headed creature at risk of tripping over its own feet.

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